Apologies for the delay all, my daughter caught the beginning of this episode and decided she would like to watch them all with me so I had to start again! Almost caught up now.
So how does this episode compare to the previous one? At first glance its another meta human baddie of the week episode. Fear not though, all is not as it seems.
So the team are out at a bar where Barry is trying to get drunk, but thanks to his metabolism just can't. It's great to see the guys out of the lab to be honest, although I am not sure how Cisco (Sisko?) got served, he looks about 16. During this a young lady appears to be robbing an office building and ends up bombing it.
Everyone wants to go there, Barry because he is the hero, Eddie because its his job and Iris because she is annoying. She goes to see if she can catch the 'streak', and manages to see Barry doing something actually quite awesome (if you suspend physics slightly). Now there is a window cleaner that for some bizarre reason is on his own, up the side of a building in the evening, in the dark, cleaning an office block. Why? Can you see the dirt? Why are you on your own? Anyway the explosion knocks the platform around and lo and behold he needs saving.Barry does this by running up the side of the building to get him and running back down again! It looked cool I have to admit. So Iris catches him in the act, which just fuels her curiosity.
During the investigation the military take over. Barry talks to Dr Wells who provides a bit of a back story, they did experiments on soldiers. Those mutant soldiers just get everywhere don't they? The team get the name of the woman robber and Barry goes to check her house out and it turns out that she can convert anything she touches into a bomb. Somehow though she doesn't have to float around naked, then touches Barry's outfit which then explodes. Luckily he got it off in time.
Cisco is annoyed at this back at base until he sees her picture – yes she is hot. After some investigation, and Bette (Plastique) showing up at the lab, it seems that Bette is looking for the person that operated on her, thinking that's why she has the power to blow things up. She wants it gone, but it turns out its related to the accident after all. This is the same universe as Superman, why can't someone be a meteor freak instead? There is bomb shrapnel in her body and it can't be removed. Sounds a little Iron Man to me, but still cool.
Dr Wells shows his dark side again in this episode, manipulating Bette into going after the general to kill him. There is a bit of history there as the two worked together in the past on various things including no less than Grodd. Barry finds out she might be trying to kill the general (after the team track her location) and goes to stop her. He succeeds but not before she gets shot. She doesn't manage to tell Barry that Wells gave her the idea before she dies though.
In another very cool scene Barry has to take Bettes' body to safety as it has become unstable and will explode. He does this by running on water – actually this is awesome. He drops the body and runs back .
The Iris side story is getting a little annoying to be honest. Just tell her already so we can have a moment like when Oliver Queen tells his best friend he is the Arrow, now that was an AWESOME scene. Barry as the Flash goes to have a talk with her to stop her writing about him, but it just makes her even more adamant, she even puts her name to her blog. She is a clever girl surely she can see the danger? Nope. Barry goes to talk with er as himself and that goes even worse, Iris can tell something is up but of course Barry can't say what because of her dad. So they agree not to see each other for a bit. I had hoped this will leave her out of the story for a bit but I suspect not.
All in all there was a lot in this episode, but it didnt overwhelm me (until I started this review). It flowed together nicely and this time only Iris was annoying. There are some cool scenes and hints to the larger world.
Keep them coming!